The Wreckage - Michael Robotham [2]
Jamal laughs. “One day they’re going to kick you out of Iraq.”
“Promises, promises.”
He calls Abu in the HiLux. “We’re going to Karrada.”
“What address?”
“Follow the smoke.”
The two vehicles circumnavigate Firdos Square and head south along the dusty dual carriageway past mud buildings and footpaths lined in places with drums and razor wire.
Baghdad used to feel foreign to Luca but he’s no longer spooked by the strangeness of the place—the jangle of tongues, the confusion of smells and the thick honey-colored light. A bus has broken down. Passengers are standing on the pavement, arguing with the driver. The men draw on cigarettes, forming wraiths of smoke that are whisked away on the breeze. The women are delicate, unknown creatures swathed in black, with non-descript bodies and dancing eyes.
Jamal takes a stick of chewing gum from his pocket and turns on the radio, beating out a rhythm on the steering wheel as he listens to a local pop song. He and Luca have become friends over the years, but that friendship has boundaries. Luca has never been to Jamal’s house, or met his wife or his two young sons. There are people who cannot know that Jamal and Abu are working for an American journalist. Sunnis. Shiites. Insurgents. That’s where death lurks. Grudges are a national sport in Iraq.
A black plume of smoke rises into the white sky ahead of them. Normally Karrada is one of the havens, thrumming with street traders and gaudy shouts of greenery. Now police and fire engines have sealed off an intersection and hoses like black pythons twist across the asphalt, bulging and squirming. Some are so perished and worn they are spraying the concrete instead of the smoldering building.
The Zewiya branch of the al-Rafidain Bank has been gutted and the windows are ringed with dark shadows of soot that leak like a beauty queen’s tears down the pale walls.
Jamal parks the Skoda and Luca takes his camera from his rucksack. He signals Abu, who waits with the cars, keeping watch from a distance.
“How many is that?”
“Six in the past two months.”
“And this year?”
“Eighteen.”
“Soon there will be no banks left to rob.”
Across the street, a group of teenage boys are laughing and shoving each other, frantic to be noticed. They are admonished by older men and told to show some respect.
A siren. A convoy. Four military vehicles weave between the fire engines, escorting a white police car with blue doors. The car pulls on to the curb, scraping metal beneath the chassis. Luca recognizes the man in the passenger seat: General Khalid al-Uzri, Commander of the National Police. Two uniformed officers wrestle each other to reach his door.
Al-Uzri stands and stretches, cracking his vertebrae and rolling his head from side to side. Cigarette smoke hangs over him like a personal cloud. Dressed in black-and-blue camouflage with a beret and epaulettes of a crossed wreath and star, he waves dismissively at the offer of an umbrella and walks through the spray, pausing to appraise the bank building as though considering making an offer.
A senior fireman emerges from within. His uniform looks too large for him, like he’s wearing his father’s clothes. He shakes al-Uzri by the hand and kisses each cheek.
“What has been lost?” asks the general.
“Three dead.”
“The money?”
“Gone.”
The general brushes water from his jacket sleeve and glances at Luca.
“You’re a photographer?”
“Yes, General,” he answers in Arabic.
“Today you work for the police.”
Luca exchanges a glance with Jamal, who shakes his head. Luca ignores him. He follows the general and the fireman down the ramp, stepping through oily black puddles and around piles of smoldering debris.
The large roller door has buckled and twisted in the heat. Two bodies lie inside. Security guards. They look like discarded mannequins with melted and blackened flesh. The smell pries open Luca’s senses. Vomit rises. He swallows